“I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). These words ring true for me so often in my experience of Life’s struggles. I DO believe. That I’m sure. So, what I believe, and why I believe, very much affects the way it applies to my every-day life. Still, questions can arise:
- “Is God really with me in all this?”
- “Is God merely a human concept in my head that I adhere to?
- “Am I viewing everything through prescribed lenses; my ‘religion’ glasses?”
However, when the hardships come, one after the other, I don’t always have time or energy to get philosophical. I just go deep and cry out to God, “I believe Lord; help my unbelief!”
The best thing to do, in a moment of respite and clarity, is to “boil it all down.” Try to see without “religious glasses” that you may have received from your parents, perhaps fitted through early childhood experience, or given to you, prescribed by professionals (be they professors, priests or pastors). It is far better to have faith lenses that you yourself own.
These lenses form through seeking God, reviewing Scripture, and viewing His Creation. It is a slow intentional process of curiosity, openness, vulnerability, and receptivity. In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah 29:13 God says, You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. There is no formula for faith. You cannot earn it. It is a gift to you from God. Yet each one of us must individually own it and exercise it, in order for it to mature within.
It is true that we all see through some pair of lenses (call it a “worldview”). And, it is very hard to remove such glasses unless we are crying our eyes out in despair and doubt, weary of what may seem endless pain. At times it may become necessary to shed those glasses because they hinder or confuse rather than aid the ability to gain healthy perspective. Often the reason for parking such glasses on our heads (or setting them aside entirely) is disillusionment.
Regarding religion some confess, “Church has become more of a hindrance than a help.” Leaders in their “robed” or “contemporary” practice have been either abusive or manipulative. “Church people” in their habitual attendance have been hypocritical or hurtful. Promises were made but rarely kept. So, going through the religious motions themselves, is only emotionally disturbing and distressing. Consequently, questions come, Where now to go? Where now to turn?
Honestly like everyone else, glasses aside and boiling it all down, I admit my need for “God with skin on.” I ache for Him to be tangible in my storm of struggle. My Help may not come from my employed church life-guard. My Comfort may not come from my church wrap-around small group. I simply need Him, as difficult as it is at times, to see Him. I simply need Him, as frustrating as it is at times, to feel Him. Yet something inside me – something that can’t easily be shaken, will not yield it’s space despite all of my personal attempts to question – remains… I still believe.
God is. Period. Whether I believe or not, God is. The deeper faith I have now, first given to me by God, now fire-tested, remains:
- Given by the Father, from whom my help comes,
- Secured by the Son, who established it for me long before I asked,
- Insured by the Holy Spirit, who remains my ever-present help in seeing my way through, must be that which never will be set aside, unless I prefer being blind (which I don’t). I believe.
Miserable at times? Yes! Worn out and weary at times? Yes! Tired of it all? Yes! Wanting it to be all done, over, and finished!? Yes! Does that mean that God must show Himself to me? Sadly, No. But this I DO know, by the faith certainly given me, He is. Period. And He is near.
Can I simply, non-religiously, explain it? Most definitely not. But as painful as Life has become, so far it is still precious to me. For it is through this experience of Life that I have come much more to believe. I have gone much too far with God, and He done much too much for me, to turn away from Him now. I am His and He is mine, come what may, no matter how much I may anguish in the day… I still believe. To that, by faith, I cling.
Boiling it all down, I believe Lord; help my unbelief!
—RWO/MAST
* This post is a revised version of the previously published “Boiling It All Down”, October, 2020.
Comments by Ric Ochsner